rprobst@SUN.COM (Richard Probst) (09/27/89)
Sun is now shipping OpenWindows 1.0 on SPARC machines. Sun-3 and Sun386i
versions will start shipping in 30 days. Here are excerpts from an
announcement recently sent to all Sun sales people.
OpenWindows is a complete application environment available today:
X11/NeWS: A high-performance implementation of the X window system with
the PostScript language and imaging model capability of NeWS.
OPEN LOOK: The premium user interface for Unified UNIX System V R4.
XView: A proven X toolkit based on OPEN LOOK, bringing over 2000
SunView applications to X11 with easy migration.
DeskSet: A set of OPEN LOOK desktop applications.
OpenFonts: Access to over 50 high quality outline fonts that
exactly match printer output.
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Pricing/Availability of OpenWindows 1.0 Developer's Release
Part Number Platform/Description Price FCS
OWN-1.0-4-4-5 SPARC -- Doc and Media $ 295 ND ** 9/25/89
OWN-1.0-4-3-5 Sun-3 -- Doc and Media 295 ND ** 10/25/89
OWN-1.0-4-R-5 386i -- Doc and Media 295 ND ** 10/25/89
OWN-1.0-X-X-9 Doc only 195 ND ** 9/25/89
OWN-X-X-X-0 RTU (Right To Use) no charge
** Note that pricing is Non-Discountable.
Also note that the Right To Use OpenWindows is bundled with every
8 MB Sun-3, SPARC, and 386i that Sun has shipped or currently is shipping.
For example, if a company owns 100 SPARC systems, they can legally purchase
one copy of the SPARC version of OpenWindows for $295 and put it on all
100 machines.
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Recent questions from the net
Q. Will OpenWindows be bundled with SunOS? If so, when?
A. In a future release of SunOS, OpenWindows will be included with SunOS,
along with SunView/SunWindows. Which release, and on what date, has
not yet been announced.
Q. When will OpenWindows become Sun's default window system?
A. OpenWindows 1.0 is not a SunView replacement. It is intended primarily
for developers who need to begin X11 application development, and for
end users who need to run X11 applications today. OpenWindows will
become Sun's default window system when it can be used as the platform
of choice by most end users, which will depend on when the applications
that end users need are available on OpenWindows. Sun is actively
promoting OpenWindows to ISVs and other developers. An end-of-life
strategy for SunView has not yet been determined.
Q. Does the OPEN LOOK GUI sit on top of the X11/NeWS server or on top of XView?
A. OPEN LOOK is a graphical user interface specification that is implemented
by a user interface toolkit. XView is the user interface toolkit in
OpenWindows, and XView is based on the OPEN LOOK GUI specification.
XView applications run on X11/NeWS, of course, and they also run on
other X11 servers.
AT&T's 'OPEN LOOK X Toolkit' is another user interface toolkit based
on the OPEN LOOK GUI specification. Applications built with this toolkit
run on X11/NeWS and on other X11 servers.
Sun and AT&T will provide each other's toolkits as part of their
respective source offerings; that is, XView source is part of System V R4,
and AT&T's OPEN LOOK X Toolkit source is part of the OpenWindows source
licensable from Sun. In addition, XView source is part of X11 R4, and
an alpha version of XView source is available from MIT today.
Q. How does SunView fit in? Can I still pixrect?
A. SunView applications can run without modification on OpenWindows,
since OpenWindows provides complete SunView binary compatibility.
However, to take advantage of the distributed capabilities provided
by X11, and of the consistent look and feel provided by OPEN LOOK,
SunView applications need to be converted to XView. SunView-to-XView
migration is straightforward, as XView very nearly matches SunView's
API. Automated conversion utilities are also provided in OpenWindows
to accelerate the migration process.
Pixrect operations in SunView binaries work unchanged (but only on
the local machine, of course). XView supports "memory pixrects", and
provides the pixwin interface as a compatibility veneer over Xlib.
Q. Will the X11/NeWS server support remote X clients?
A. Yes. X11/NeWS is fully X11 R3 compliant, and supports local and remote
X clients. However, XView and the OpenWindows window manager are X11 R4
compliant, which means that they support and enforce the ICCCM standard.
Applications that are not ICCCM compliant may not work without a simple
fix. All X11 R3 compliant applications will work with X11/NeWS, and all
ICCCM compliant applications will work with the OpenWindows window manager.
Q. Will OpenWindows perform well on architectures other than SPARC?
A. OpenWindows will perform well on other architectures. This message was
composed on OpenWindows on a Sun 3/80. However, we are recommending SPARC
as the platform of choice for OpenWindows because of the good fit between
RISC's superior performance and the demands of distributed window systems.wyant@apollo.HP.COM (Geoffrey Wyant) (09/28/89)
While I'm sure Sun's customer's are happy to learn that OpenWindows
is finally shipping, I find it very annoying to have Sun using the
network for its own advertising purposes this way. This newsgroup is
for technical discussion not product announcements. There is an existing
newsgroup for new product announcements.
I would not be so upset if this was the first time that Sun abused the
net for advertising purposes, but there have been numerous other times
as well.
Flame Off
-- Geoff
wyant@apollo.hp.com
--
UUCP: wyant@apollo.com